{"id":1330,"date":"2021-11-30T14:05:23","date_gmt":"2021-11-30T19:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vibingonvinyl.com\/?p=1330"},"modified":"2021-11-30T14:05:23","modified_gmt":"2021-11-30T19:05:23","slug":"they-might-be-royalty-is-more-than-a-record-label","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vibingonvinyl.com\/they-might-be-royalty-is-more-than-a-record-label\/","title":{"rendered":"They Might Be Royalty Is More Than A Record Label"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Samantha Colleran, November 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
They Might Be Royalty logo, courtesy of Lena Vazquez<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Right before Thanksgiving, I sat down to talk with two incredibly ambitious people in the music industry. Founders of the music label They Might Be Royalty, Lena Vazquez and Jacob Simmons started TMBR during the pandemic and are officially ready to introduce all of their hard work to the world. I\u2019m absolutely honored to have spoken with them about the start up of TMBR, and you can read our full conversation below! Check out the end of the end of this post to see where you can follow TMBR on socials and stay up to date on their future progress!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SC: Hi guys!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: Hello!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LV: Hi Sam, how are you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SC: Good, how are you guys?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: I\u2019m doin\u2019 pretty good, Lena?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LV: Not bad for a Sunday, can\u2019t complain!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SC: Awesome! So, I know why we\u2019re here today but for my audience who does not, if you\u2019d like to give an introduction of who you are and what we\u2019re talking about today\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LV: Sure! I\u2019ll lead. Hi everyone, my name is Lena Vazquez. I am the co-founder of They Might Be Royalty, a Philadelphia based record label for the aspiring music artist community. I am currently a senior at SUNY Oneonta and I\u2019m studying music industry. And yeah, that\u2019s me!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: Hello everyone, I\u2019m Jacob Simmons. I\u2019m also a co-founder of TMBR Records. I\u2019m a music business and technology major at University of the Arts. I\u2019m also not only working with TMBR and helping Lena build it up, I\u2019m a singer-songwriter myself, so be on the lookout for some new sounds!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SC: That\u2019s so awesome! How did you guys meet and what made you want to start up TMBR and collaborate?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: I can answer this question if you\u2019d like. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LV: Sure, have fun with it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: It\u2019s a pretty funny story! Lena and I were in the same music concepts class, which is sort of like music theory. We bonded over the fact we were both so confused about what was happening in the class. From there a friendship blossomed and it grew over time. We would meet before class and talk about music, the class itself, and just life in general. We became really close and Lena actually moved away to\u2026 you can say the name because I ruin it everytime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LV: Oneonta!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: Oneonta, right! So during the pandemic- actually, Lena, you can say this part since you know more about what you planned on doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LV: During the pandemic, I was trying to figure out ways I can still work with the artist community and support them, especially since the pandemic took such a toll on the music community. I had this idea of having an artist management company where I could help promote their music and help guide their reputation online and connect them with other artists I knew that were looking for opportunities to collaborate with other people. It was originally called Lena Rose Management, I had an Instagram up for that, but I was looking for more people to help out with it. Jacob actually reached out to me and it was great because we connected and caught up again. We had some meetings and talked about expanding from an artist management company to a collective-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: A music collective!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LC: Right, a music collective. After some other networking opportunities with some professors at the University of the Arts, we came to realize that we are a record label. From there on, I think about July, we\u2019ve been an established record label. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SC: I love it! Where did you come up with the name They Might Be Royalty? I think it\u2019s so cool!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LV: *laughing* Jacob, you take this one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: *laughing* We\u2019ve always waited for someone to ask that question. I think we were looking for something that we could make into an acronym, because acronyms are always cool. I\u2019m also really into royal stuff, and wanted royal somewhere in the title. I thought it would be cool since we\u2019re helping aspiring artists and talent, and they could eventually- they might be royalty. There\u2019s something within these artists and ourselves, it\u2019s about the potential our artists have in the industry, their greatness and success, and we\u2019re honored to be helping them get to where they need to be. I hope that made sense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SC: It made perfect sense, that\u2019s incredible! Kind of jumping from that point, would you guys like to talk more in depth about They Might Be Royalty\u2019s specific hopes you have to help aspiring talent within the music industry; artists, writers, I know you said you cover all sorts of industry bases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Lena Vazquez, co-founder of TMBR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

LV: The main goal is to have our own network, one big network. Just to backtrack, TMBR is Philadelphia based, that\u2019s where I went to school, I love Philly, it\u2019s my heart and home. I met a bunch of artists who had similar ideas of collaboration and I wanted to see it come true. Even through the pandemic I wanted to see it continue. We represent a variety of industry creatives and executive personnel such as music artists, audio engineers, producers, journalists, managers, tour managers, we\u2019re giving everyone an opportunity to work together. As we\u2019re in our younger years in school and are able to develop it so we have some sort of direction we can continue with once we\u2019re out of school and actually entering the big, crazy industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: I just want to build upon what Lena was saying. We want to create different opportunities and make them available for younger artists because we all know it can be isolating within the music industry sometimes, especially for younger artists who are just starting to get into the business. We want to have those opportunities ready so these artists can work with other people in the same lane as they\u2019re in, you know? Instead of doing something just for personal gain, we can all work towards something, which is building up the TMBR brand and label. Everyone\u2019s building it up through their art and their work, and they get to collaborate and help each other along the way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SC: I like that you brought up the fact the music industry can be really intimidating. I know for me personally, I think networking was something I had to push myself to do. The fact you guys are creating a little network where people can be unafraid to talk to other people starting on similar levels is really important. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: My dream is for an artist to say \u201cI wrote this song, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s my sound\u201d, and be able to call up another TMBR artist and say \u201cHey, want to sing this song for me? I have everything arranged, but can you put your own sound and spin on it?\u201d That is the<\/em> dream for me! I can just retire after that. I want to be at the point where artists within our community can transfer their work to others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SC: I think that\u2019s so awesome. Jumping off from that question, do you guys have any artists currently, or are you working to sign any artists?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LV: We have been in contact with a few people who are interested in working with us! We\u2019re communicating and networking with them now, we have some meetings set up, so hopefully we start producing them and you will see them releasing music under our label soon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SC: Are you limiting yourself to one genre, or is it anyone you feel like has the talent and passion for music?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: That\u2019s a good question! We don\u2019t want to limit ourselves to one specific genre, but we also don\u2019t want twenty different genres we\u2019re working with at the same time just because of how crazy and nondescript it can make what we\u2019re doing. Right now, we\u2019re focusing on alternative, indie, pop areas of music. Artists like Beach House, MGMT, The Killers, also some\u2026 Lena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LV: Oneonta locals like Fake My Feelings, Seeing Double, those types of genres. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: This is a Philadelphia based band, but Diana Is Calling, they just came out with a couple of videos. They\u2019re pretty good as well!

SC: Awesome! Are there any producers or other people in different areas you\u2019ve been looking to work with too? Obviously you cover a lot of bases, so who else is on the TMBR roster, or will be on the roster?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LV: Along with the artists we have coming out, we are in contact with quite a few producers as well. We might be onboarding them within the next month or so. We\u2019re in the process of officially establishing our LLC and other business related things, so we\u2019re just about ready to start our next phase of getting more people on board. We actually just onboarded one of our most recent members, we have a music journalist with us now. We\u2019re on the right path and we have a few people we can start putting on our roster, hopefully within the next week or so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SC: That\u2019s so great! I know you mentioned there\u2019s a few Oneonta and Philly people you\u2019ve been talking to, but once you set the groundwork and establish those artists, do you hope to expand nationally or internationally? What do you hope to see for the future of TMBR within the next few years?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: For the most part I would say, and Lena you may correct me if I\u2019m wrong, but within three to five years we hope to have the Northeast of America knowing the name of TMBR. We want to be a well known record label in that area, and then we\u2019d like to go to the Southeast. I hope this isn\u2019t too general!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Jacob Simmons, co-founder of TMBR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

LV: Just to bounce off of that, Jacob definitely has the right idea for the next couple of years. Even just for now, within the next one to two years, I\u2019m really hoping to dominate Philadelphia and that everyone knows about our brand. Ethically and morally, we want to be positively seen there, we want our mission and values to be well known there. Even though I say we\u2019re a Philadelphia based label, we\u2019re more than happy to expand with people. Oneonta bands, Long Island bands, Tennessee bands, we\u2019re really open to anyone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SC: I love everything about that! I know you guys are both from the Philly area or have ties to there. Is Philly a really happening music scene, or do you hope to be two of the people who make it a really well known area, like a Tennessee type of city?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: I think it is! Philly is really into house bands, small intimate garage settings. You have a drummer, guitarist, and bassist, and everyone kind of plays shows that way. I know the hip hop scene is pretty heavy as well. I keep my ear geared more towards the pop stuff, though. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LV: Philly is a really great city for music and arts. You have the big sports arenas where Beyonc\u00e9 has performed before. Places like The Met Philadelphia, the Fillmore, the Foundry. I worked at the Fillmore for an internship for some time with Live Nation and the whole atmosphere was so amazing. University of the Arts is such a huge arts school, and bouncing off of what Jacob said, it\u2019s a lot of DIY and underground artists. There are artists who just want to have fun, but there are people who want to keep going and take music seriously. I thought it would be such a great hot spot for us because there is traction there and there are so many opportunities there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SC: Right, definitely! I love how passionate you guys are about all of this, it\u2019s so inspiring. Those are all of the questions I had for you guys today! Is there anything else you want to say to the Vibing On Vinyl audience? Where can people find you and learn more about TMBR and keep up to date once you officially have artists and more members on your roster?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LV: We do have a landing page right now, if you go to tmbrrecords.com<\/a> you\u2019ll see a place to subscribe because we have newsletters we send out and we have our about page. We also have an Instagram page, again, @tmbrrecords<\/a>. We\u2019ve posted some clips of some concerts that have been happening in Oneonta, some fun Q&A\u2019s, and more information will be posted there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to put some more emphasis on our mission statement for everyone. Our biggest mission is to provide artists, creatives, executive personnel, all the creatives, with strong support for music release and production, overall producing a network that contributes to unlimited collaboration opportunities. This idea really started during COVID when I\u2019d see artists posting on Instagram saying things like \u201cI need a bassist, please hit me up if you can help me with a song this weekend\u201d, and I really want to help people make that connection as seamlessly as possible. I want to lift that weight and be the middleman that can say, \u201cI can help you right now, I\u2019ve got five bassists. Here\u2019s their information, connect with them, and let\u2019s get your project rolling\u201d. Jacob, is there anything you\u2019d like to add onto that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: It\u2019s the idea of collaboration. If your listeners can take away anything from this, it\u2019s how much we are willing to collaborate with other people and artists. From this process, it\u2019s made me admire the collaboration process so much more. Working with Lena, I\u2019ve learned that no one has a bad idea, obviously not every idea can go through but it doesn\u2019t mean your idea is any less worthy of being heard. Everybody has a chance to be heard. When you think of TMBR, I want people to think of the collaborative process of making art. I feel like when I\u2019m making art, collaboration is something that I appreciate the most because, again, nobody has a bad idea. It\u2019s only bad if you don\u2019t express it. I hope that made sense!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SC: It made perfect sense! Thank you so much for sitting down with me for a few minutes! Everybody who is reading this once it goes live, if you\u2019re in any field of the music industry make sure you give these guys a follow. They\u2019re super passionate, and you can truly tell how much love has been poured into this project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LV: Thank you so much, Samantha! Big shoutout to you, and Vibing On Vinyl. I love seeing your content and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS: I agree! Thank you very much for speaking with us, because you did not have to, I truly appreciate it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SC: Anytime, guys!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of the official They Might Be Royalty links are included above, so be sure to give them a follow on Instagram and subscribe to their newsletter to stay up to date on all things TMBR! Thank you so much to Lena and Jacob for taking some time to speak with me about TMBR, and I\u2019m so excited to see what the future has in store for this incredible label!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Right before Thanksgiving, I sat down with Lena Vazquez and Jacob Simmons, co-founders of They Might Be Royalty Records. Learn all about TMBR and their goals for the music industry in this exclusive interview!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Last week, I sat down with Lena Vazquez and Jacob Simmons, co-founders of They Might Be Royalty! Check out today's newest post to learn all about how the record company started up and their vision for the company! \ud83d\udc93","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[40],"tags":[243,297],"class_list":["post-1330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","tag-interviews","tag-they-might-be-royalty"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vibingonvinyl.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/1.jpg?fit=1366%2C768&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbTCvy-ls","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vibingonvinyl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vibingonvinyl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vibingonvinyl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vibingonvinyl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vibingonvinyl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1330"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/vibingonvinyl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1337,"href":"https:\/\/vibingonvinyl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1330\/revisions\/1337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vibingonvinyl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vibingonvinyl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vibingonvinyl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vibingonvinyl.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}